Quick Summary (from
IMDB): Eight years on, a new terrorist leader, Bane, overwhelms Gotham’s
finest, and the Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that has branded him
an enemy.

Along with The Avengers
and Django Unchained, The Dark Knight Rises was one of my most anticipated
movies of 2012, and so far, I’m 2 for 2 in terms of not being let down. It’s
never easy to follow up a great film like The Dark Knight and have the sequel
be as good as, if not better, but Christopher Nolan was able to do just that.

The Dark Knight Rises
builds upon both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and is a fitting conclusion
to the trilogy. From start to finish, the film, and the series as a whole just
feels epic, and the action and performances have backed it up throughout.

Christian Bale’s third turn
as the Batman is a little more subdued than the first two films, and his voice,
while still pretty gravelly and odd, is much less severe than in The Dark
Knight. Bale’s Batman isn’t the same man as the first two films, he’s been
defeated, broken down, and is a shell of his former self after 8 years in
seclusion. Christian Bale nails the various emotions and states that Bruce
Wayne has to go through to come back and be the hero Gotham needs.

As good as Bale has
been in this series, his solid performance has been overshadowed a couple of
times. While he was the driving force behind Batman Begins, he took a kind of
back seat (and rightfully so) to Heath Ledger’s performance in The Dark Knight.
In Rises, he’s back to the forefront, kind of. His performance is stronger, but
so are the performances of his two villainous counterparts, Anne Hathaway as
Selina Kyle and Tom Hardy as Bane.

More than anything
else, I was completely surprised by Hathaway’s performance in this movie. I’ve
never seen her in a role of this magnitude, and never seen her give such a
strong and confident performance. She was sexy, cool and confident throughout,
and was the perfect embodiment of the Catwoman character. I’ve no doubt a
Catwoman movie with her as the star would be immensely more successful than the
Halle Barry catastrophe. Hathaway’s Selina Kyle was a lot like Bruce
Wayne/Batman in that she operates entirely within a gray area. Yes, she’s a
thief, but she’s got some ground rules, and her intentions are (sometimes)
good.

A lot of ink has been
spilled based on Hardy’s performance as Bane. While most of it probably
pertains to his garbled, borderline unintelligible voice, that shouldn’t take
away from his overall performance. Due to the constraints of his mask, Hardy
had to convey so much power, intelligence and evilness with his body language
and his eyes, and the result was a terrifying and evil man. Inevitably, Hardy’s
Bane will be (unjustly) compared to Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight,
but there really is no comparison to be made. Ledger’s performance was head and
shoulders above everything else, that it’s really not fair to Hardy, who
brought forth terror and evil in a completely different way than Ledger. The
Joker was evil and crazy, and just wanted Gotham to fall into chaos. Bane,
while also evil, was following a very meticulous and thought out plan. Their end
goals may have been kind of similar, but their paths and motives were completely
different.

Christopher Nolan has
done an amazing job of casting throughout the trilogy, and it continued with
Rises, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Matthew Modine and Marion Cotillard joining
Hathaway and Hardy as new members of the cast, with Bale, Michael Caine, Gary
Oldman, Cillian Murphy and Morgan Freeman all reprising their roles from the
earlier films. Nolan has a way of bringing out the best performances from his
actors and putting it together perfectly.

Nolan’s take on the
Batman franchise is so drastically different than the direction the previous
films had taken, with Batman & Robin and Batman Forever taking on an almost
retro comic book feel, and both were outlandish and over the top ridiculous. By
contrast, Nolan’s trilogy feels grounded and real, and very much character
driven. None of the previous Batman films dealt much with Bruce Wayne’s
motivation, or what he was thinking behind the scenes. Nolan turned it around,
and took an introspective look at the Batman, and the man who chose to become
him.

Honestly, I’ve no need
for any more movies about Batman, especially if Christopher Nolan is truly done
making them. Within the last 25 years, there have been 7 feature films devoted
to the man, and I think with Nolan’s trilogy, we have the definitive Batman for
years to come. Sadly, I know someone at Warner Bros. will probably greenlight a
Batman reboot within the next five years, and I’ll see it, but it’s going to
have to be pretty damn impressive to even come close to Nolan’s epic vision.